


Coping Mechanism

by shara



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-12 09:30:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4474172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shara/pseuds/shara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Greg gets into a fight. Gen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coping Mechanism

  
The first time Greg’s father locked him outside the house all night, Greg got into a fight.

He went to school the next day, stepped off the bus onto the dusty grounds like always and didn’t stop to think. He walked up to the first kid he saw that was slightly bigger than him, taller and surrounded by friends, and shoved him hard, so that he fell back and hit the ground.

“Hey,” the kid said, standing up and brushing himself off, blinking irritably at him, evidently thinking it was an accident. “Watch it!”

Greg looked at him steadily and stepped forward, pushed him again, hard.

“What the—” the kid bit out, surprise morphing into anger on his face.

A hand pulled at Greg’s shoulder from behind, spinning him around. It was one of the kid’s friends, red with indignation. “Hey!” he said. “What’s the deal?”

Greg waited until the kid had scrambled to his feet again before tearing free of the friend’s grasp and leaping at him, shoving blindly, his mind ringing with a strange blankness.

And then they were on him, all four of them, legs and arms and sharp-edged knuckles, punching him in the face, splitting his lip. He didn’t have a chance against them, couldn’t even get up, couldn’t fight back, but underneath the sharp spikes of pain, the taste of blood in his mouth, he felt a terrible, aching relief.

*

House didn’t realize that he was doing the same thing here until he was already on the floor, getting his face busted in by a pissed-off metal-head. The memory gave him a brief moment of regret that he was repeating himself, but when the metal-head’s friends pulled him off, saying “Dude, he’s a fucking cripple,” and “The guy’s like 60, man, just forget about it,” it didn’t stop him from rolling to his knees, ignoring all his bruised muscles, and lunging at him, bringing them both down again where Metal-head could finish beating him up in peace.

“Fucking cripple,” the guy was yelling. “What the fucking fuck—can’t shut the fuck up—”

House looked up into Metal-head’s face as it twisted red and furious, as his fist came in to crash against his jaw, and felt a weird elation, the same blank sense of purpose, and grinned insanely, cold air hitting his bleeding gums. Metal-head dragged him up and smashed his head against one of the legs of the pool table, and when House felt wetness trailing down his head and had to blink blood out of his eyes, he realized his cut had opened up again.

 _Cameron’s lousy stitching_ , he thought, making a mental note to tell Cuddy and maybe get Cameron fired, before dark spots began swimming in his vision. Right before he blacked out, he realized the last blow must have jarred his skull fracture. He heard a panicked voice in the distance shouting “Someone call 911! This guy needs an ambulance!” and thought, _fuck_ , because this wasn’t how it was supposed to turn out at all.

 


End file.
